Local
Eastern Market construction hours expanded for extensive floor work
By: Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
January 29, 2009
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| The interior of Eastern Market’s South Hall, as seen in September of 2007. Additional work and extended construction hours will be needed to make the hall’s expected reopening this summer. (Examiner File) |
A three-alarm fire gutted the South Hall on April 30, 2007, causing $20 million in damage to the historic 135-year-old market. To reach the goal of reopening this summer, the Office of Property Management announced this week that work would extend from 3:30 p.m. to midnight Monday through Friday, and from 6 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturdays. The altered schedule will continue until May.
“The work they’re doing is interior work,” said Ken Jarboe, who sits on the Eastern Market Citizens Advisory Committee. “It’s not going to be people pounding outside until midnight. That’s what we’ve been told.”
Neighbors might hear the sound of small tractors backing up outside the building and dumping concrete inside, OPM said. The first three weeks of work will be the most intensive.
The unexpected issues involve the “badly deteriorated flooring of South Hall,” OPM spokesman Bill Rice said, including structural steel beams that were “corroded beyond repair and brick arches that were compromised.” A new floor structure will be designed, reviewed and installed in time for the grand reopening this summer, Rice said.
The entire rebuilding effort was expected to take two years and cost roughly $25 million. The city says it has overestimated — it pulled $2 million from the Eastern Market cache late last year to pay for a new levee system on the National Mall. The added cost for the market will come from the project’s contingency fund, Rice said.
Displaced Eastern Market vendors remain open in a $1.5 million temporary facility across Seventh Street SE, on the grounds of Hine Junior High School.
Ward 6 D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells, who represents the market, praised the additional work as “an investment for another 100 to 200 years.”
“Because we want the market to be there another 100-plus years, they decided to go ahead and tackle the floor,” Wells said. “That meant reinforcing the brick work of the old arches underneath. I think it’s a great thing.”
Wells said he would closely monitor the effect of noise on the community.
